I have been following this very closely. There are also rumours that the FAA will also follow suit. It is a worry as if it does make it's way to the UK, then any aircraft with a Jabiru engine will have virtually no resale value as no one will want one.

But, as has been said by a lot of people, Jabiru only have themselves to blame for it. They have denied any problems with their engines for years and it has been left to owners (such as myself) to pay a hefty price to fix their design flaws. No help from Jabiru and not even an offer of discount parts to assist in any rectifications. Since owning my Jabiru I have spent in excess of GBP3000 on engine work which were all common faults and rectifications. Fair enough, I bought mine secondhand and well out of warranty but I would have had a lot more respect for Jabiru if they had of offered some sort of discount parts offer for affected engines. Not only did I not get any discounts, I had to pay an over inflated price for replacement parts. In the end, I went the CAMiT route and not only are they better quality, but less than half the price. Then Rodney Stiff sends out a letter that not only denies problems with their engines but also criticises anyone that has used anything but original Jabiru spares. Jabiru have had plenty of time to both analyse and repair design defects but instead they have chose to deny all faults and instead charge customers for redesigned parts.

Looks like the crap that has been coming from Jabiru for years and years has finally hit the fan. Good to see that Mr Stiff is standing squarely behind that fan.

Of course everyone makes mistakes. Even the global car manufacturers who spend millions on R&D, and on production quality control, still have frequent vehicle recalls to correct design/manufacturing errors (OK a recall might be based on a 1 in 1000 risk of a failure rather than 1 in 10; and they look for problems rather than try it hide/ignore them; and they pay for the rectification recalls rather than making even more profit by charging the hapless customer for the replacement parts.

But with vehicle recalls the problem is always isolated to a group of engine/vehicle serial numbers where the problem exists. For the Jabiru engine if the serial numbers that have "known" problems are separated out (for example early engines with small fin heads, engines with the undersize through studs, engines with the original lean burn carb jets, engines with oversized valve guides, early (all?) hydraulic lifter engines, engines with negative clearance dizzy caps) then the reliablility of the remaining engines might be seen to be adequate or dare I say it - even good.

If CAA/LAA decide to "take and interest" in engine reliability perhaps we should guide them towards specific problems on specific engines that Jabiru have swept under the carpet rather than condemning the whole breed?

The analogy with breeds might be taken a step further. The Jabiru is (in my view) a lovely engine that has developed a bad reputation soley because of the neglect/mishandling/abuse by Mr Stiffs company. Perhaps the best thing that CASA could do would be to ban Mr Stiff from owning or having any contact with the Jabiru engine; and then to officially re-home the engine with someone who understands, loves and cares for it (Camit?)

Constant denial of mechanical and design flaws amount to delusion and arrogance. Had Jabiru accepted and admitted to the likelihood that there were mechanical problems possibly caused by design flaws, and most of all investigated them with an open mind, it probably would have been cheaper for them in the long run as well as building a reputation with their customers.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot ... Rod is a master at that. Now, to sum it up, jabiru aircraft are worth a lot less than they were yesterday ! Thanks Rod ...

On a good note, the restrictions do not apply to CAMit Aero Engines (slagged off by rod in his last rant) so in future all of my bits will be coming from CAMit !

What does the future hold ?

1. jabiru work hard at building customer confidence and rod leaves anything to do with engines to someone who knows about engines and maybe the whole thing can be turned around (CAMit comes to mind).

2. continues with his arrogance and "point the finger" attitude and jabiru, the once jewel of Australia's aircraft manufacturing becomes history.

Update from meeting: (ending truncated due length) Jabiru met with RA-Aus and the CASA in Canberra today in a lengthy and fruitful meeting. For the present, the CASA consultative instrument is not applicable. Jabiru expressed its concern about its publication of the proposal which you probably know was issued yesterday, 13th November, about 18 hours before our scheduled meeting started. RA-Aus was also concerned about this super short notice with limited time to respond. We are very pleased to report that we and CASA have reached an agreement on a pathway forward. That proposed limitations may not come to fruition, however Jabiru has much work to do. Jabiru has already put in place a range of reforms and is demonstrating to the CASA clear willingness to improve engine reliability. What all parties in the meeting agreed was the need for improvement in the flow and accuracy of information about engines and incidents. This needs the full co-operation of all aircraft owners and operators. Please keep information flowing to Jabiru, the RA-Aus or the CASA in response to the CASA website request. It greatly assists air safety. We thank RA-Aus President Michael Monck and CEO Michael Linke for their thoughtful and positive assistance and for putting RA-Aus' position forward.

Many thanks for that information Ralph. You advise us that: "Jabiru has already put in place a range of reforms and is demonstrating to the CASA clear willingness to improve engine reliability."

Ensuring maximum reliability is a basic, and fundamental requirement for any designer/manufacturer where their products have a reasonable chance of killing the user should they fail in use.

Can you advise (or find out) whether reliability has always been Jabiru's highest priority? If so how they have got it so wrong for so many years, and what the measures they are now taking/intend to take to improve reliability. At the moment this response sounds like the usual spin and hyp that comes from Rod's "Directors Chair" (words don't improve reliability but actions can)

As Jabiru never respond to suggestions from non-Oz customers can we use you as a conduit to put suggestions to jabiru. My suggestions are

1) Jabiru to publically advise on the present action plan to improve reliability (let us hope they don't say the guys who have been cocking it up for so long will now be working overtime to increase the rate of cock-ups)

2) Jabiru should get the complete design and production facility audited by an independent BS9000 quality assessor. And it needs to be a well respected auditor (not the type who report what you want them to in exchange for an appropriate fee).

3) Publish an overview of the conclusions from 2) above together with the action plan to resolve the deficiencies.

4) Report on a monthly basis on progress against 3) above.

5) Regularly update all owners with the number of engine failure incidents by fault type, and the SNs affected.

6) Either revert to the pre-hydraulic engine design (but with fine fin heads and improved flywheel mounting) or negotiate to make the Camit engine under licence until the hydraulic engine can be demonstrated to be more powerful and reliable than the Camtec Engine.

Hi Bob, I'm in NZ so over the years have had the same difficulty with factory support as anybody. In the last couple of years it actually improved because there was no longer a dealer here so Jabiru allowed parts to be purchased direct. I also acknowledge the manuals and installation instructions have become much more detailed. Its possible your points 1,4,5 will happen as a result of the CASA action. I dont agree with the idea of BS9000. in this part of the world BS is a term used frequently. if you mean ISO9000, that is the same outcome. I have it in my workplace, and I can assure you it means nothing apart from the thousands of dollars for the audits. I think they already do this type of stuff, anyway. Doesnt seem to have helped. I would expect CASA to audit whether the engines are still being manufactured in compliance with their type certificate, I would expect ASTM to be auditing whether those engines still meet those requirements. 6) revert to solid lifter design - yes that is a likely improvement. more follows...

part 2..." whether reliability has always been Jabiru's highest priority? If so how they have got it so wrong for so many years" I think they thought it was reliable....but you dont know what you dont know. Unfortunately almost every change has been detrimental and/or ineffective - such as the later through bolts AND the latest flywheel attach starfish bolts have failed on near new Jabirus maintained by LAME here. This was publicised by NZCAA and for once the factory could now longer blame bad ignorant owners or maintenance procedures. I'm pretty sure they would have been running airport fuel which is 100/130 AVGAS (green) so no extra detonation risk here. If I had a hydraulic lifter engine I would be retrofitting with solids at the first sensible opportunity, together with the belt driven alternator. I'm at 480 hrs on a 2200 thats only had the exhaust valves replaced as precaution @ 300 hrs. But it is a lightly loaded installation just starting to vent oil so new rings coming soon. When the barrels come off there will be some serious looking and it might be a CAE conversion or D-motor that goes in.